For my second Yurt Adventure I’m cooking Paleo for my girlfriend Gail for three weeks. She suffers from fibromyalgia, and a few people on the Paleo forums have seen substantial improvement with that condition by going Paleo. I’d been working on her to try it for some time, but the fact that she has two kids who *won’t* be on the diet makes it impossible to take the easy path by eliminating all tempting foods from the house for the duration of the trial. Add to that the difficulties of cooking with body pain and fatigue, and it was clear that she could use some help. The yurt will be my office and bedroom for the trip so I can choose my level of interaction with her kids, and make my presence less intrusive. I’ve considered making Traveling Paleo Chef a more regular gig for me, and this is my first chance to give it a try.

Taking down the yurt in my Austin back yard

I loaded my bulky, highly absorbent memory foam mattress onto the Metro along with the yurt door frame. This sketchy setup almost fell off several times during the trip. Not a usable setup for Portland 2013!

The yurt going up in Gail’s back yard! I made it!

I added grommets to the vinyl wall to allow for bolting on. I used to run it through the doorframe instead, which made it harder to close the door.

The roof lift is still the slowest part of the setup. I’d like a faster, clearer solution to float the roof ring during 1-person setup. Maybe I should make more friends.

My first morning in the yurt!

Rain in the forecast! I got some caulk at the Habitat Restore and started plugging! I also raised my highly absorbent mattress off the floor in case of flooding. The yurt came through the first rainstorm with no leaks.

This is Nacho, Gail’s adorable chihuahua. She saved him from distemper, and just had him fixed. Poor Nacho!